“Cyborg” Flesh Created With Nanowires and Human Tissue

“Cyborg” Flesh Created With Nanowires and Human Tissue

Lookout people, we have officially started down the path toward creating the borg!

Bioengineers at Harvard University have created “cyborg” flesh by growing tissue around nanowires and transistors. Half living cells and half electronics, the human tissue is able monitor and transmit data like a heart rate. Working off a scaffolding of collagen interwoven with nanowires and transistors, the researchers grew neurons, heart cells, muscle, and even blood vessels with a built-in sensor network. The goal is to eventually “wire up tissue and communicate with it in the same way a biological system does.”

Harvard University researchers have created a kind of "cyborg" tissue by combining nanowires with human flesh.

Jim Festante

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While we're still a long way off from practical application, the team envisions a future where we could augment our physiology to repair damaged areas and detect internal inflammation, blockage, or tumors. That could be great news for medicine … or, another tiny step in our ill-advised quest for immortality.